DREAMLAB

Mythos was one of the also-rans in R.U. Kaiser's Kosmische Musik stable. But they did their best to match the psy-fi standards of the time, with a little help from the Kaiser's muse, Gerlinde 'Gille' Lettmann, aka 'Starmaiden' (please don't laugh), who was credited with "presenting" the band's second album, and who also no doubt had a say in Peter Geitner's cosmidelic artwork.

To an impressionable teenage boy (like me, when I first heard the album) the cover illustration of the two Aryan sex gods was probably more attractive than the music itself, which was never more than the tamest Space Rock. Dedicating a song to Wernher von Braun, the reconstructed Nazi-turned-NASA space cadet, was a convenient way for the band to fake its cosmic credentials, but the track actually contains the best music here, opening the album in certified ASH RA TEMPEL territory.

Too bad that model rocket ran out of fuel so quickly, descending to shallow fantasy wish- fulfillment in the two-part "Message" ("Listen to what we say! We are brothers, throw your weapons away!"), and the Hawk-windy "Expeditions". The latter track ends with some of the album's more effective guitar work, but the only real message in the former was an emphatic invalidation of Stephan Kaske's singing skills. It doesn't help that the mix was so poor: the drums are barely audible, and Kaske's flute tethers the music to earth in a way that might have worked better in a Jazz Rock context.

Side Two is an improvement, in part because the embarrassing lyrics were kept to a minimum. And veteran Krautrockers can safely assume the 'Harald' thanked in the album credits was the ubiquitous Harald Großkopf...that liquid cymbal sound effect heard in the song "Eternity" was borrowed from recent WALLENSTEIN albums, another band under R.U. Kaiser's controlling thumb.

With a little more determination Mythos could have rivaled Ash Ra in the German cosmic rock sweepstakes. Just because many other bands were doing the same thing better is no reason to completely dismiss them, but it's true: many other bands were doing the same thing better.